12 December 2009

The Walt Disney Family Museum: The Man, The Magic, The Memories

Many of us have not yet had the opportunity to visit The Walt Disney Family Museum, located in San Francisco, but the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive (just check out Sam Gennawey’s three part tour [Part I, Part II, and Part III]). For those of us pining away to gain some further insights into the life and times of Walt Disney and his family, there is hope! And it comes in the form of the Musem’s book, The Walt Disney Family Museum: The Man, The Magic, The Memories.

The book is penned by J. B. Kaufman, with an introduction by Diane Disney Miller. If the name Kaufman sounds familiar, it is because he is not only a walking encyclopedia of Disney history, but he also just released another well-received book, South of the Border with Walt Disney: Walt Disney and the Good Neighbor Program. While The Man, The Magic, The Memories tops out at only 96 pages, a far cry from South of the Border’s 336 pages, Kaufman finds a way to herd all the remarkable aspects of Walt Disney’s life into this thin volume.

The Walt Disney Family Museum is sectioned into ten separate galleries, with each gallery detailing a specific period of Walt’s life and being told, as much as possible, by Walt Disney himself. The Man, The Magic, The Memories translates each gallery into its own chapter, complete with photographs of some of the Museum’s most treasured pieces.

The Walt Disney Family Museum: The Man, The Magic, The Memories serves as a resource to everyone. Disney rookies will find Kaufman’s text provides a quick read, while functioning as an excellent introduction to the larger world of Walt Disney biographies. Disney authorities, who have more than likely read every page of every biography available, will love the crisp and clean summary of Disney’s life and the collection of some of the remarkable pieces to be found inside the ten galleries. No matter your level of Disney knowledge, this book has something special for you to gleam from its pages.